How did British queens get power over kings despite a male-dominant society?
score:16
Until now, British law has given priority to male over female heirs of kings. But where there were no male heirs, a girl got the nod.
For instance, King Henry VIII had three (surviving, legitimate) children; Edward (the youngest), Mary, and Elizabeth. Edward, the boy, was crowned king ahead of his two older sisters. He died in adolescence (without children), so his older sister Mary was crowned Queen Regnant (a female king), and when she died childless in middle age, the middle child was crowned as Queen Elizabeth I.
Centuries later, King George VI had "only" two daughters, Elizabeth, and Margaret, so the former was crowned Elizabeth II. But if Margaret had been a boy named Mark, then "Mark" would have been crowned king over Elizabeth.
Going forward, Kate Middleton's first child was a boy, but even if it had been a girl, under the newest laws, the girl would (assuming she lived long enough) have been crowned Queen (Regnant), even ahead of any younger brothers she might have had.
Upvote:1
There was actually one time when England had a King and a Queen both regnant. When William of Orange was urged to come and overthrow the Catholic Stuart kings, he became King and his wife Mary, who had the blood ties to the kingship, became Queen and they ruled jointly. This situation continued until Mary died and her he became sole King.
On his death, Mary's sister Anne became Queen. Her husband was not named King, but was a Prince Consort.
Upvote:2
Under English law and tradition, just as the spouse of a King is a Queen consort rather than a Queen Regnant, the spouse of a Queen Regnant is a King Consort and not a King Regnant or Monarch.
Other dynastic and national traditions may vary, as for example for Catherine the Great in Russia as well as her grand-mother-in-law Tsarina Catherine I.
Update:
In regards the English tradition of referring to the spouse of a Queen Monarch as a *Prince Consort:
Queen Victoria (reigned 1837–1901) wanted to make her husband Albert king consort, but the British government refused to introduce a bill allowing it, as Albert was a foreigner. She instead gave him the title of Prince Consort in 1857.
Note from this that there was apparently no opposition to the title King Consort being used, only to it being held by a foreigner.
Upvote:13
Britain's order of succession is determined by male-preference cognatic primogeniture (in the future it will be equal primogeniture). This allows a female to ascend the throne as queen regnant (queen in her own right, as opposed to being a consort to a king). Queens Elizabeth I & II and Queen Victoria are example of such queens. In their cases, there is no king - spouses of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II are titled "prince consort", and they are merely consorts to their queens.
On the other hand, queen consorts, such as the spouses of Kings George V & VI, did not have the same position as Queen Victoria's.
More post
- 📝 Have the current polar ice caps receded further than those that existed before the beginning of the last Ice Age?
- 📝 At the Battle of Zama, was the Roman army more "native" than the Carthaginian?
- 📝 Are there historical texts in England querying where Roman structures came from?
- 📝 What salary did Hitler draw as Führer?
- 📝 How do we reconcile hierarchical and violent aspects of Ancient Egypt with its nonviolent principle of Maat, as exemplified in negative confessions?
- 📝 Did the Roman testudo protect the sides of the formation?
- 📝 Was "leather" really a technology introduced by Europeans to the Plains Indians?
- 📝 Number of artisanal working hours spent on making Terracota Army
- 📝 Did the proto-Indo-Europeans displace or overlay the pre-existing European tribes?
- 📝 Do historians agree that wars break out because of miscalculations?
- 📝 Feudalism vs Serfdom
- 📝 About what percent of people died on the Oregon Trail?
- 📝 Did Nazi Germany suffer hyperinflation during the war? Why or why not?
- 📝 Did the rebels in the American War of Independence acknowledge English Civil War rebel groups as an influence on their thinking?
- 📝 How wide-spread was antisemitism in the USA during WWII?
- 📝 How did knights in full suits of armor eventually die in combat? What were the most common causes of death for soldiers in full-body plate armor?
- 📝 Why is former Portuguese flag similar to Finnish one?
- 📝 What is the history of "industrial date coding" (year followed by week number)?
- 📝 Tito's partisans loyalty
- 📝 What was the first emergency management agency in the world?
- 📝 Were the 1400s-1600s really not part of the "Middle Ages"?
- 📝 In view of the widespread use of the term "Semitic", which groups of people are classified as being of Hamitic ethnicity?
- 📝 Jules Verne's book about media
- 📝 Is this inscription in the Jefferson memorial consistent with Jefferson's views?
- 📝 Was the last Japanese surrender after WWII in the 1970s?
- 📝 Which port did Alexander board his ship from, while returning from the Indian campaign?
- 📝 What is the relationship (if any) between Skøyen and Skøyenåsen in Oslo?
- 📝 Why did Mongolia split in two when they declared independence?
- 📝 The link between Kaiser Wilhelm I. and the city of Bonn
- 📝 Who was the architect of Uraniborg and Stjerneborg?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How did British queens get power over kings despite a male-dominant society?
- 📝 Why did Frank James (Jesse's brother) get acquitted and how was he close with President Roosevelt despite being an outlaw?
- 📝 How did Italy and Germany get rubber in WWII?
- 📝 How did the British Navy pass orders to its fleet before radio?
- 📝 What made the English the dominant power of the British Isles?
- 📝 How much did J. Robert Oppenheimer get paid while overseeing the Manhattan Project?
- 📝 How did Alexander III of Macedon get the title "the Great"?
- 📝 How long did it take to get news of the sighting of the Spanish Armada from Land’s End to London?
- 📝 How did Hitler get off so lightly after the Beer Hall Putsch?
- 📝 How did the Germans get housing again after WWII?
- 📝 How did Napoleon evade the British fleet and return to France?
- 📝 How and why did Charles XII get to Poltava?
- 📝 How Did the Mongol Empire Get So Big?
- 📝 How did the British keep Enigma 'snatches' secret?
- 📝 When and how did the idea of a "class-less" society originate in the United States?
- 📝 How did the "Standard Model" physics theory get that name?
- 📝 How and why did Polish rule over the Ukraine "downwardly deviate" from Lithuanian rule?
- 📝 How long did it take mail to get between Madrid and Mexico?
- 📝 How much tax revenue did the British Empire receive from its colonies in a given year?
- 📝 Before modern banking, how did government-issued coins get into everyone's hands?
- 📝 How did the elite maintain the status quo throughout the British Colonies of North America?
- 📝 How did Egypt become a protectorate of the British empire?
- 📝 How did the Catholic Pope manage to become more powerful than Kings in old Europe?
- 📝 During the U.S. Prohibition, how did they get away with drinking alcohol?
- 📝 How strong a land force did Germany need for a conquest of the British Isles in the summer of 1940?
- 📝 How did the Czech Legion get home?
- 📝 How did the British Army unit size and structure in WWI change from 1915 to 1918?
- 📝 How did the Medici originally get into finance?
- 📝 How did American colonial rights and conditions compare to those within the British Isles?
- 📝 How much firepower did the British navy represent in 1940?